A Very Bakura Christmas
by Chibi Cheesecake
Summary: Yami Bakura documents his first Christmas in Ryou's body - tormenting the mailman, evil snow, bullies, letters from dead girls, true friendship, and a sprinkling of Christmas magic. One shot; non-shounen-ai; just a cute lil (late) piece for the holidays.


A Very Bakura Christmas  
  
Disclaimer: Nope, don't own.  
  
Rating: PG-13 to be on the safe side. Violence and Bakura's mouth. ^_^ It's not too bad though.  
  
Summary: Yami Bakura documents his first Christmas in Ryou's body - tormenting the mailman, evil snow, bullies, letters from dead girls, true friendship, and a sprinkling of Christmas magic. One shot; non-shounen-ai; just a cute lil (late) piece for the holidays. ^_^  
  
Mojobubbles: ^_^ Got smacked in the face with this the other morning on the bus.....Just remember that Amane is not our OOC, she was Ryou's little sister, she's dead, mentioned once in the manga when he was shown writing a letter to her, yadda yadda......  
  
Kamilah: Oh, and we're gonna say it again: THIS IS NOT SHOUNEN-AI, OK!?  
  
Mojobubbles: Yeah. So don't give us reviews like, "Aw, how cute Bakura finally realizes he loves Ryou" or something. o_O;  
  
Kamilah: Enjoy. ^_____^  
  
Mojobubbles: Oh yeah, thanks to Daricio for helping me with this at 11 PM my time on Christmas. ^o^ And thanks to Katie for the whole Poke-of-Doom thang. ^^;  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
December 5  
  
Ryou's taught me what Christmas is. I'm making a list, because I think I might wanna remember this.  
  
Christmas is:  
  
1. Time to spend with family and friends (even though hikari's father is still traveling around the globe.....I didn't point this out to Ryou, though.)  
  
2. Jesus' birthday. (From what I can tell, Jesus is kind of like a modern- day version of Amun-Ra.)  
  
3. The morning when children open the presents they got from Santa Claus. (The whole Santa concept just freaks me out. I mean, they're supposed to be excited that some fat guy in a red suit breaks into their house, eats their food, and leaves boxes under a tree? And another thing, why do they have trees in their living rooms, anyway?)  
  
This whole Christmas thing is really confusing. Maybe I'll write down more as I learn more?  
  
*************************  
  
December 6  
  
I. Can't. Believe. It.  
  
DID YOU KNOW THAT WATER CAN FREEZE!?  
  
I mean, sure it got cold in Egypt, but I've never seen it get cold enough to freeze water.....  
  
And when it freezes rain, then this white stuff that everybody calls 'snow' starts falling instead of rain. Today's what Ryou calls a 'snow day'.  
  
I woke up this morning and found him still sleeping, and when I looked out the window EVERYTHING WAS WHITE!  
  
Ryou laughed at me for screaming. Stupid hikari.  
  
***********************  
  
December 7  
  
I keep stealing Ryou's paper to write my notes. Oh well. He won't mind.  
  
I realized I'm writing one of those journal things.  
  
......No, not a journal. Ryou read a book about this weakling who wrote a journal to write down his feelings. I don't feel. This isn't a journal.  
  
It's a......log. Because that's what I'm doing. I'm logging things that happen.  
  
Ok. Today's thing: I wanna kill Joey.  
  
I'm going to stay in the house even more than usual, ever since the incident this morning in which a certain moronic blond had made me the target of a ball of frozen slush, claiming he thought I was my hikari.....suuuuuure.  
  
Of course, there all pretty hyped up about their holiday break thing coming up. (Ryou says that the 22nd is their last day of school until January) I have to admit, it's somewhat infectious.  
  
Not that I'm excited about their little mortal affairs, of course. I just find it hard to plot evil schemes for taking the Items with all this *cheer* going around.  
  
******************  
  
December 9  
  
I'm confused. I don't know what to think about that drawing. I don't know if I should show it to Ryou.  
  
I'm not about to risk getting hit with another infernal snowball, however being cooped up inside every day is getting pretty monotonous.  
  
So when the doorbell rang at about ten-thirty this morning while Ryou was in the shower I jumped at the chance of another present-day mortal to terrorize.  
  
It was the mailman. Perfect.  
  
I began by opening the door, and staring straight at him. Not saying anything, just staring.  
  
He stared back.  
  
I stared. He stared. We just kept staring.  
  
Suddenly, he seemed to remember he had a job to do, and he blinked.  
  
"HA!" I screamed, pointing in his face. "YOU BLINKED! YOU HAVE LOST THE DARK STARING CONTEST! PREPARE TO SUFFER IN THE DREADED SHADOW REALM FOR ALL ETERNITYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!"  
  
His eyebrow twitched. He shoved the mail at me without a word, and turned and began speed walking down the sidewalk.  
  
"THAT'S RIGHT, MORTAL! JUST KEEP GOING! RUN FROM YOUR FATE, YOU COWARD!"  
  
At this, he began running, and I distinctly heard him mutter something about 'fruitcakes'.  
  
So I turned back and headed inside, still reveling in my victory, and suddenly this folded piece of paper falls out of the pile of mail.  
  
When I picked it up and unfolded it....I just had to stare at it.  
  
It was a drawing, a simple crayon drawing, of a girl with white hair holding hands with some boy with white hair, standing in a flower field.  
  
I knew instantly who they had to be.  
  
I figured maybe it was someone playing a really awful joke on Ryou, or something. 'Course, then I remembered he never talks about her, except to me, occasionally. And don't go looking at me all skeptical like that, because I listen.....most of the time.....but seriously, sometimes....I guess sometimes I feel like I know her as well as he did. And I thought maybe the mail guy made a mistake. But that girl in the picture looked just the way he said she did, and the boy looked just like him.....but I just didn't get it.  
  
I mean, letters from dead girls don't just magically appear in a person's mailbox.....  
  
So how could the drawing be from Amane?  
  
I don't know. I just don't know. I haven't shown Ryou the drawing yet.  
  
********************  
  
December 11  
  
Yet another snow day..  
  
Got a letter from 'Amane' today. Once again, thank the gods, Ryou was busy.....  
  
(He forbade me from having another Dark Staring Contest with the mailman. Stupid hikari.)  
  
I was suspicious about the drawing, but now I'm really suspicious. I mean, the note just seemed......I dunno. Something smelled really bad, and it wasn't that fruitcake thing Ryou was baking.  
  
(By the way, I'm not sure why the mailman called me a fruitcake. Maybe he's blind. I mean, I don't see how he could've thought I was a loaf of bread filled with god-knows-what and covered in alcohol. I swear, these modern day mortals are just.......weird.)  
  
*******************  
  
December 13  
  
Am so mad I can hardly write. I knew it couldn't be true. I just knew it!!!  
  
Malik overheard the boys talking; he told me.  
  
It turns out some boys who go to Domino High like to congregate in the cemetery, and they found one of Ryou's letters to Amane, and thought it would be funny if they wrote back.  
  
I don't think I've ever wanted to kill someone so bad in my whole life.  
  
And I still haven't shown Ryou the stuff.  
  
**************  
  
December 14  
  
Malik thinks I should show Ryou the stuff. I dunno, maybe I should listen to him......hard as it may be to believe, he's good with......you know, not hurting people's feelings. Whatever. I think that's because he's so terribly loyal to us all now.  
  
Malik's tolerable, though. He was unbelievably exasperating at first, running around in Ryou's body and bossing me around......  
  
But then when he stumbled into my soul room that one night, sweating and shaking all over......He started sobbing, and he told me we had to save his brother from 'It'....So we went off and saved.....ah, what's-his- face.....you know, Baldie? Rishid. Right. We saved Rishid from yami no Malik, and got our asses kicked in the process.  
  
After you've been through something like that with someone, then no matter how annoying they are, you start to trust them, I guess.  
  
*************  
  
December 15  
  
.....Ryou's not speaking to me.  
  
He found the letter and the drawing.  
  
He wouldn't listen when I told him they were fake.  
  
He said something like, "Just because you don't believe in miracles doesn't mean they don't happen!"  
  
Then he slammed the door in my face.  
  
**************  
  
December 18  
  
Ryou's sort-of speaking to me again, but given the circumstances I almost wish he wasn't.  
  
He believes me now about the letter being fake, because the boys confronted him today......  
  
They walked up to him at his locker and shoved him hard. (Kind of like a rougher version of my Poke of Doom.)  
  
"Heh, whatcha gonna do now?" one asked. "Write another letter?"  
  
Ryou blinked and regained his balance. "What are you talking about?"  
  
"You know exactly what he means, you freak," another one added.  
  
"What is it with you and death?" the third asked. "My father's been dead a good 10 years, and you don't see me sittin' around writing letters to him and pretending like he's gonna write back......"  
  
And then at this point it hit us both. Malik and Joey had just come out of whatever class they were in, and Malik just stared at the boys and Ryou with this grim angry look......  
  
Ryou just stood there in shock, and I started screaming at him to let me come out.....He just ignored me.  
  
"So......." Ryou said softly, voice shaking. "You wrote the letter?"  
  
They all grinned stupidly/maliciously and nodded. I swear, I wanted to kill them.  
  
Then suddenly, Ryou turned and ran, and everybody laughed. (Well except Joey and Malik, duh.....)  
  
After that, he finally let me take control of his body.  
  
Luckily, there was only one more class that day, one with both Yugi and Malik, so I marched in about 10 minutes after the bell.  
  
Unluckily, Mr. Midori teaches that class, and we both hate him with a passion. He's got the most nasally voice, and he always smells like onions and fish and the locker room rolled into one.  
  
"Mr. Bakuuraa, where have youuuuu beeeen?" he droned when I walked in. I had to bite my tongue and remember that I was playing Ryou.  
  
I gave him some half-baked excuse about running an errand for another teacher, and before he could ask for proof I stalked to the back of the room and sat in Ryou's desk, my hands clenched and my eyes murderous.  
  
"Here," Malik hissed then, coming to my rescue and shoving a book at me. "Pretend to read it."  
  
So it was study hall. As soon as the bell rang, I grabbed Ryou's books and dashed out of there.  
  
Malik could explain it.  
  
****************  
  
December 18, about 9 PM  
  
Horrible.....it's so horrible....I just don't know what to do......I know this isn't mine, but I have to write it down......  
  
Ok, calm down, Ryou. Just start from the beginning. Um....this is Ryou writing this entry.....I found the papers paper-clipped together in my soul room, just sitting there, as though they were waiting for me....... But my yami's hurt, he's hurt real bad, and I feel sick....It was just like the day Amane died.  
  
He was still in my body, walking home from school, when the car came barreling down the hill......  
  
And now our body and his mind are in a coma and my father's coming in 5 days.  
  
I've been reading through these entries, and now I feel so awful about everything that happened with the so-called mail from Amane-chan.  
  
I don't know.....I mean, I guess a part of me knew there was no way they could be real, but a part of me just wanted to believe. And now I wish I could tell Yami I'm sorry, but I can't.....And I can't just take over my body again and walk out of here, because the doctors are sure we're dying.....  
  
Only one of us is dying!!  
  
The thing is, just before his mind slipped away, he said, "I was just trying to protect you."  
  
And I don't know whether he meant from the car, or from the boys at school.  
  
*************  
  
December 19  
  
I had the strangest dream last night.....Although I guess it was more like a vision. At least, it certainly wasn't an average dream. (This is still Ryou, by the way.) I didn't even realize I feel asleep. (I didn't even know it was possible to fall asleep in a soul room, as a matter of fact.)  
  
There was this little boy leaning against a stone wall, in some alley of some sort.....I think it was somewhere in a desert, because there was a lot of sand and dirt and the boy was wearing a light sort of robe......  
  
He slipped to the ground, shaking all over, and then I realized that blood was streaming down his cheek.  
  
He started speaking some other language, but it was pretty obvious someone was dead.....He kept saying something, I think it was someone's name, and I think it was A-m-i-something..... All I know is, it sounded a lot like 'Amane'.  
  
Suddenly I heard all these heavy footsteps, and both the boy and me turned and saw all these soldiers running by. They were yelling and shouting, and I bet they'd cut the boy's face, and were looking to kill him. The boy huddled down against the wall, and on an impulse I sort of ran over and crouched down in front of him, trying to shield him, even though I knew I wasn't really there......But the odd thing is, one of the soldiers turned and stared right through us, and yet he didn't see the boy.....  
  
As soon as they were all gone, the boy jumped up and tore past - actually through - me, and out of the alley.  
  
I went after him as soon as I heard him screaming. But then, when I saw what he saw, I screamed too.  
  
There were all these bodies, some of them still intact, quite a few of them completely dismembered.  
  
The boy ran up to one of them, a small one, and it was one of the less mutilated. He cradled it in his arms, and started saying the 'A-m-i- something' word again. And then he started sobbing, and he buried his head in her blood-stained white hair. That's when I realized that beneath the dirt and the blood, the boy's hair was white and messy.  
  
I think the boy was my yami.  
  
************  
  
December 20  
  
Well......that was quite an experience. This is Bakura again.....I woke up. The doctors didn't let us out of the hospital until they'd performed about a million more tests.  
  
Ryou was so happy to see me, I'm not sure why....I'm not even sure why I woke up. I heard this voice yelling at me in Egyptian, and after all these years I could barely understand it......  
  
But I heard 'wake'. And 'friend'. And 'worried'. And 'brother'.  
  
************  
  
December 21  
  
I don't believe it. How many entry-things have I started like this? But this time I just really can't believe what they did now.  
  
I've never seen Ryou so upset before, but I think he has a right to be upset. Hell, *I* was really upset, and it wasn't even my sister.......  
  
See, Ryou wanted to go to the cemetery and see Amane, because he always does that when he's stressed out, so we went, only when we got there we could barely read the inscription on her tombstone, because the whole grave was absolutely covered in graffiti.  
  
And, of course, we knew who'd done it.  
  
I started screaming and cursing and Ryou started shaking and moaning.  
  
"I'M GONNA KILL THEM!" I screamed over and over, till finally Ryou yelled at me to stop it.  
  
"Don't kill anyone, please!" he was sobbing, collapsing on his knees onto a light dusting of snow. "Then you wouldn't be any better than them...."  
  
I shut up after that.  
  
Ryou told me that his father's coming on Saturday, the 23rd, and he said that he's bound to come here......  
  
So then I crouched down next to him, and I told him to calm down and that we'd clean it up by Saturday. He turned and stared at me, his eyes all wide, and asked, "'We'?"  
  
I didn't have anything else to say, so I just nodded and turned away.  
  
************  
  
December 21, about 8 PM  
  
Well, the graffiti's definitely is coming off, which is a good thing......We scrubbed until it got too dark to see what we were doing.  
  
Ryou's doing his homework (actually, he's in the kitchen at the moment) and I'm writing this down, and I think we're both trying to ignore the screaming pain in our arms....  
  
He just tossed me some bag thing; it's really warm. I think he had it in the.....micro-wave. He told me to wrap it around my arm.  
  
Ahhhhh. That feels better.....  
  
(We still have more to do on the grave tomorrow. My poor arm.)  
  
************  
  
December 22  
  
I've got another one of those warm-bag-things. I'd rather not write anything, but I have to write down the stuff Ryou and I talked about today.  
  
Well, first he decided to skip school today, because we still had a ton to do at the cemetery......  
  
Ryou definitely did not go for that idea at first, but we had too much to do wait for school to end. Besides, I pointed out that with it being the last day before break, the teachers weren't really planning to do much. He'd filled in Malik who promised to fill in the others and tell the teachers that Ryou had talked to him last night and had been feeling sick or something. Whatever. As long as we didn't get caught.  
  
See, lately - and I guess it's all this family matter - but lately, I've been remembering *my* family. Dunno if you could even call it a family......I guess it was your typical anti-perfect family.  
  
Dead mother, drunk father, spiteful older brother.....and then there was her.  
  
My little sister.  
  
All I can remember is that I loved her. I don't remember her name. It's been driving me insane, too. (Well, more insane than I already am, that is.)  
  
Ok, so then Ryou and I had this really long conversation while we were washing the grave.....I'll try to remember it.  
  
"What would you do if you couldn't remember the name of someone who meant everything to you?" (That was me.)  
  
Ryou just kind of looked at me, sponge in midair, with this look of understanding. "Is it someone you can't remember from Egypt?"  
  
I shook my head. "I remember everything about her except her name." I dunked my sponge in the bucket of water we'd brought and scrubbed furiously at a bright red smiley face covering up the A in Amane.  
  
Then it hit me. I stared at it.  
  
"Did it start with an A?" Ryou asked.  
  
I nodded. "And then it was an..M...and...an I..."  
  
Suddenly I threw my sponge on the ground in frustration. "I don't remember.....She meant the world to me and I can't remember her name......"  
  
Oh Ra, it was so embarrassing. I turned away and stared at the ground, 'cause all of a sudden I was trying not to cry.  
  
There's a lot I don't remember about my life before, but I do remember the day they were all killed. I decided to tell Ryou what I remembered.  
  
"I lived in this village called Kuruelna. The place was full of tomb robbers; they called it the tomb robber capital of Egypt, actually. At the time, the pharaoh was Yami Yugi's father, and he had a problem. There was a war going on in Egypt when I was 8 and my sister was 5. One of his 6 high priests then suggested that they make these magic items to help them fight the war - the Millennium Items.  
  
"But in order to make the items they needed a sacrifice. Of 99 people. And what better 99 people to kill than a village full of tomb robbers?"  
  
I paused, letting that sink in, I guess, but Ryou seemed undaunted.  
  
Or maybe I paused because no matter how many years ago it was, I never got over what happened next.  
  
"Everybody was running and trying to get away, and one of them ended up grabbing me and slicing me across the face; I had this huge scar on my face for the rest of my life. I managed to get away and hide in this alley........and then they killed her.  
  
"But the weirdest part was, they were running out of the what was left of Kuruelna, and they ran right past the alley where I was hiding, and somehow they didn't see me. And they were staring right at me, too!  
  
"As soon as they were gone, I ran out and found her body....."  
  
"And?" Ryou prompted.  
  
"That's it," I told him gruffly. "She was dead." I didn't tell him I cried. Ryou just looked at me, looking as though someone had just handed him the missing pieces to a puzzle he'd been trying to solve for ages.  
  
We scrubbed in silence. Very faintly, we could hear carolers singing downtown.  
  
"Amane-chan used to draw us these really sweet pictures every year for Christmas. It became as much a tradition as getting our tree on a Saturday or leaving milk and cookies for Santa. I still have the drawings she gave me somewhere.."  
  
All of a sudden he started sobbing.  
  
I kept scouring. All the graffiti was off the word Amane.  
  
"It was all my fault," Ryou was sobbing. "We'd been at the park, and then I told her we should race home......but everyone comes down that hill outside the house really fast, you know? So when she ran ahead of me across the street, this car came......and then....."  
  
I told him he didn't need to say it.  
  
"Glass from the windshield was flying everywhere, and I was running over to her, and the people in the car were screaming.....I got cut across the face, see?" And then he pushed back his hair, and showed me a scar along the side of his face, and I guess that's one of the reasons he lets his hair grow so long - to cover that scar.  
  
"Yami......Do you believe in destiny?" he asked. I blinked at him. "Because......I just think it's weird how.....we both had little sisters. We both lost them. We both ended up cut on the same place. And then 3,000 years later, you end up in my body."  
  
I sort of understood what he was saying. "You mean do I think its destiny that the Ring came to you?"  
  
He nodded. "It's kind of like our destines are intertwined."  
  
I smirked. "You're starting to sound like Isis."  
  
"I'm serious!"  
  
"I know. And I think you might be on to something. Because I've come to realize that there are no coincidences where the Millennium Items are involved."  
  
Then all of a sudden I saw a piece of paper sticking out of the snow, next to the grave. I knew what it was, but I picked it up anyway.  
  
I'd never read any of Ryou's letters to Amane before, and after I finished reading that one I dropped it and stared open-mouthed at Ryou.  
  
He'd never mentioned the drawings. So how could the bullies have drawn the picture that came in the mail?  
  
*************  
  
December 23  
  
So. That's Mr. Bakura.  
  
Ryou didn't let me come out and talk to him. Stupid hikari.  
  
I was only planning to use the Poke-of-Doom.......  
  
I'm not terribly fond of the man. I think he needs some people skills. I guess I shouldn't condemn him - or either of them, really - for being shy; they sort of have a right to it. And he spends waaay too much time traveling, if you ask me. He's probably trying to just escape from all the pain. But I mean, come on, doesn't he think *Ryou* has pain?  
  
Well whatever. They were happy to see each other. They went out to some restaurant after Ryou picked up his father at the train station.  
  
They were all cheerful and talking nonstop, but then when they were heading out across the parking lot these two idiot drivers out in the street crashed into each other, and Ryou reflexively tensed up and grabbed his father.  
  
It wasn't anything serious; hikari's father said it was only something called a 'fender bender', but I guess it shows that you really never get over losing someone the way he did.  
  
************  
  
December 23, sometime after 1 AM  
  
I SAW HER! SHE CAME! I REALLY SAW HER!  
  
I don't believe it. I'm so frantic right now I keep dropping the pen. She looked just the way he said. She looked just the way she did in the drawing......  
  
Ryou's practically hanging on me, trying to pretend he's not crying, but it's ok, I don't mind.....  
  
I mean, we saw Amane!!!!!!!!!!!  
  
It was one of those dreams where the person's really there, only they're appearing to you in a dream......  
  
......Don't give me that skeptical look, those dreams REALLY HAPPEN!!!!!  
  
(We've decided to keep it a secret, of course..)  
  
Ok, so maybe it was more like a vision, or whatever.  
  
But whatever it was, it started when I was sitting in my soul room, just kind of dozing, when I heard footsteps.  
  
So I got up and followed the sound into Ryou's soul room, where there was this little girl with white hair sitting next to him, watching him sleep.  
  
She turned and stared at me, and I stared back.  
  
"You.....you're......." I was about to start interrogating her, but she turned to Ryou and asked me why he wouldn't wake up.  
  
As if he was on cue, Ryou blinked and sat up. He stared at me, then at Amane, then at me again.  
  
"I'm dreaming, right?" he mumbled.  
  
"I dunno," I replied. "It's between a dream and reality....."  
  
(Ok, sounds clichéd, I know, but I didn't know what else to say!) Thus he reached over and yanked Amane into his arms. He was sobbing and she was sobbing and he was calling her Amane-chan and she was calling him oniichan.....and I just sat there and watched.  
  
It was sappy, yes, but it was kind of......nice.  
  
Especially when she came over and hugged me. Because, to be honest, no one's hugged me like that for roughly 3,015 years.  
  
Turns out she did leave the drawing, somehow. She *has* been getting all of Ryou's letters.  
  
And it turns out the reason she was able to appear like that is.....she said she's moving on now.  
  
"I've been watching," she said. "And I don't think I have to worry about my oniichan anymore."  
  
Ryou laughed at that. "Oh, come on, *you* were the one always worrying *me*...."  
  
She said she'll still get Ryou's letters, though. We're all happy about that, I think.  
  
When she told us her time was up, she turned to me, and she said she'd say 'hi' to Amineh for me.  
  
I felt like I'd been slapped in the face.  
  
"Is that her name?" Ryou asked. And I nodded.  
  
So I swallowed the lump in my throat, and asked Amane to tell Amineh I was sorry for forgetting her name.  
  
******************  
  
December 24  
  
Ryou's sleeping now.....normally he's a light sleeper, but tonight he's too tired to hear his father snoring like a lion in the other room......  
  
He's been pretty insane today; for the most part I've stayed out of his way. He was cooking, cleaning up, wrapping presents.....He even recruited me into helping make on of the pies.  
  
I decided not to bring up the blender incident of last summer. (I mean, how was I supposed to know you needed to put the cover thing on?!)  
  
His father was dashing in and out of the house continuously, doing last- minute shopping.  
  
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the holiday supposed to be about family and love and peace and that Jesus? Whatever.  
  
It didn't look at all like the day before Christmas. Ok, so I've never had a Christmas before, but from what I can tell it's supposed to be exciting and snowy and blissful, only today it was rainy and dismal and a bit disheartening.  
  
Ryou's neighborhood was doing this thing called 'luminaries' where they stuck milk cartons all along the sidewalk and stuck candles in them. It did nothing except give me a strong craving for chocolate milk and a desire to play with matches. (What can I say? It's fire in a stick.....)  
  
We went out and lit the candles despite the fact that it was drizzling steadily and had been for the past three hours or so....  
  
"You know they're all gonna go out, and then we will have stood out here freezing our asses off for no reason?" I asked, appearing next to him in transparent form so only he could see or hear me.  
  
He looked up at me and rolled his eyes. "Oh, c'mon.....the only way they'd get put out is if a drop of rain fell in exactly the right position, and what's the chance of that?"  
  
"There's a chance," I said indignantly.  
  
So after we froze our fingers off, and then headed back to his house because he and his father had to get ready for a special church service.  
  
All the stuff they talk about in their church confuses me, so I just used that time as an opportunity to start today's entry thing..... (This is not a journal, because I don't feel, remember!?) And I went back and read them.  
  
When I read the entries Ryou had written, I just.....  
  
I didn't know what to say. And I had so many questions. I mean, is that why the soldiers didn't catch me? Because Ryou was protecting me about 2,984 years before he was born? I was so quiet the whole time, I think it kind of made Ryou a bit nervous.  
  
We were driving home from the church when he suddenly started yelling at me to come look.  
  
See, Ryou's street is on a hill, and his house is at the bottom of the hill, right? So when we drove over, all the luminaries were lit, and they just seemed to snake up the hill, just these little dots of light standing out against the blackness.  
  
I told Ryou that he should make some sappy speech about how it looked as though the light would go out, and yet here it was shining for us against all odds....he agreed, but said he was too tired to make said speech.  
  
He wasn't too tired, though, for us to talk about these entry things.  
  
And I told him everything. And he told me everything.  
  
Honestly, I.....I guess I sort of......  
  
I don't think of Ryou the same way I used to.  
  
........  
  
NOW DON'T GIVE ME THAT LOOK! I don't mean I think about him like THAT.....  
  
I just.....he's not weak. He's not a pansy.  
  
Hell, he's probably the bravest person I've ever met. I mean, the look on his face when he just walked into the cemetery with all the sponges and stuff.....I don't think I'll ever forget that. It was part determination, part misery, and part utter devastation.....  
  
I will forever be pissed about that. Do these people have no honor whatsoever?  
  
But I digress. My point is.....  
  
I think now, it's finally hit me that he's really grown on me. And......I think I've grown on him.  
  
He told me that he really meant every word of those two entries he wrote in the hospital. And he told me that he couldn't believe when I helped him wash Amane's grave in the cemetery. I rolled my eyes and told him I did have an honor code....just a really weird one.  
  
He told me that I'm not who I used to be. I asked him what he was talking about, I told him I'd never changed.....but I think Ryou's right.  
  
As usual.  
  
He's changed me, though. He's made me who I am today.  
  
He's......he's my friend.  
  
He's the first friend I've ever had. And now I think I see. I think I see why Yami Yugi was going crazy trying to save everybody in Battle City.  
  
And I dunno what it was that brought us together.....maybe it was Amane, somehow, or maybe it was those hours we spent in the cemetery, or maybe even Amineh's spirit had something to do with it...or maybe, maybe it was just some of that Christmas magic.  
  
But whatever it was......I think....I think I could get used to having a friend.  
  
**************  
  
Mojobubbles: X.X My room was completely demolished...We repainted it. ^_^  
  
Yami B: First it was overwhelmingly pink, now it's overwhelmingly purple. -- _--  
  
Mojobubbles: Don't look at me like that, minna-san...it wasn't preppy pink...It was pastel-7-year-old-pink.  
  
Amane-chan: *looks thoughtful* I liked it.  
  
Mojobubbles: Probably because you're 7 years old.  
  
Amane-chan: ^____^;  
  
Kamilah: *hugs Amane-chan* ISN'T SHE CUUUTE!? ^^ She's our newest cast/posse thingy member. We brought her back to life with Authoress Powers. ^_^  
  
Ryou: *scratches cheek* And I kind of owe them forever for that..  
  
Mojobubbles: *sighs in frustration* I'm sorry this took so long......Kikyo, my computer, underwent like 5 bazillion surgeries and stuff.......XD Bits of it were kind of rushed, I know.....V_V  
  
Kamilah: Well anyway, let us know what ya thought.. 


End file.
